My Unknown Chum: "Aguecheek"

A little more – that is the phrase – and there is no human being, rich or poor, who does not think that "a little more" is all that is needed to fill up the measure of his earthly happiness. It is for this that the gambler risks his winnings, and the merchant perils the gains of many toilsome years. For this, some men labour until they lose the faculty of enjoying the fruit of their exertions; and this is the ignis fatuus that goes dancing on before others, leading them at last into that bog of bankruptcy from which they never wholly extricate themselves. Enough is a word unknown in the lexicon of those who have once tasted the joy of having money at interest, and there are very few men who practically appreciate the wisdom of the ancient dramatist who tells us that

"He is most rich who stops at competence, —Not labours on till the worn heart grows sere, —Who, wealth attained, upon some loftier aimFixes his gaze, and never turns it backward."

"Give me neither poverty nor riches," has been my prayer through life, as it was that of the ancient sage; and it has always been my opinion that a man who owns even a single acre of land within a convenient distance of State Street or of the Astor House, is just as well off as if he were rich. My petition has been answered: but it must be confessed that when I mouse in the book shops, or turn over the rich portfolios of the print dealers, I feel that I am poor indeed. I do not envy him who can adorn the walls of his dwelling with the masterpieces of ancient or modern art on their original canvas; but I do crave those faithful reproductions which we owe to the engraver's skill, and which come so near my grasp as to aggravate my covetousness, and make me speak most disrespectfully of my unelastic purse.

Few people have spent any considerable time abroad without being for a season in straitened circumstances. A mistake may have been made in reckoning up one's cash, or a bill may be longer than was expected, or one's banker may temporarily suspend payment; and suddenly he who never knew a moment's anxiety about his pecuniary affairs finds himself wondering how he can pay for his lodgings, and where his next day's beefsteak is coming from. It was my good fortune once to undergo such a trial in Paris. I say good fortune – for, unpleasant as it was at the time, it was one of the most precious experiences of my life. I do not think that a true, manly character can be formed without placing the subject in the position of a ship's helm, when she is in danger of getting aback; to speak less technically, he must (once in his life, at least) be hard up.

I was younger in those days than I am now, and was living for a time in the gay capital of France. My lodgings were in one of those quiet streets that lead to the Place Ventadour, in which the Italian Opera House stands. My room was about twelve feet square, was handsomely furnished, and decorated with a large mirror, and a polished oaken floor that rivalled the mirror in brilliancy. Its window commanded an unobstructed view of a court-yard about the size of the room itself; but, as I was pretty high up (on the second floor coming down) my light was good, and I could not complain. As I write, it seems as if I could hear the old concierge blacking boots and shoes away down at the bottom of that well of a court-yard, enlivening his toil with an occasional snatch from some old song, and now and then calling out to his young wife within the house, with a clear voice, "Marie!" – the accent of the final syllable being prolonged in a preternatural manner. And then out of the same depths came a melodious response from Marie's blithesome voice, that made me stop shaving to enjoy it – a voice that seemed in perfect harmony with the cool breath and bright sky of that sunny spring morning. Marie was a representative woman of her class. I do not believe that she could have been placed in any honest position, however high, that she would not have adorned. Her simplicity and good nature conciliated the good will of every one who addressed her, and I have known her quiet, lady-like dignity to inspire even some loud and boastful Americans, who called on me, with a momentary sentiment of respect. They appeared almost like gentlemen for two or three minutes after speaking with her. Upon my honour, sir, it was worth considerably more than I paid for my room to have the privilege of living under the same roof with such a cheery sunbeam – to see her seated daily at the window of the conciergerie with a snow-white cap on her head and a pleasant smile on her face; to interrupt her sewing, with an inquiry whether any letters had come for me, and be charmed with her alacrity in handing me the expected note, and the key of numero dix-huit. Her nightly Bon soir, M'sieur, was like a benediction from a guardian angel; her vivacious Bon jour was an augury of an untroubled day; it would have made the darkest, foggiest November afternoon seem as bright, and fresh, and exhilarating as a morning in June. These are trifles, I know, but it is of trifles such as these that the true happiness of life is made up. Great joys, like great griefs, do not possess the soul so completely as we think, as Wellington victorious, or Napoleon defeated, at Waterloo, would have discovered, if, in that great hour, they had been visited with a twinge of neuralgia in the head, or a gnawing dyspepsia.

The influenza, or grippe, as the French call it, is not a pleasant thing under any circumstances; but I think of a four days' attack, during which Marie attended to my wants, as a period of unmixed pleasure. She seemed to hover about my sick bed, she moved so gently, and her voice (to use the words of my former cherished friend, S. T. Coleridge,) was like

" – a hidden brookIn the leafy month of June,That to the sleeping woods all nightSingeth a quiet tune."

"Was it that Monsieur would be able to drink a little tea, or would it please him to taste some cool lemonade?" Hélas! Monsieur was too malade for that; but the kind attentions of that estimable little woman were more refreshing than a Baltic Sea of the beverage that cheers but does not inebriate, or all the aid that the lemon groves of Italy could afford. Marie's politeness was the genuine article, and came right from her pure, kind heart. It was as far removed from that despicable obsequiousness which passes current with so many for politeness, as old-fashioned Christian charity is from modern philanthropy.

But – pardon my garrulity – I am forgetting my story. In a moment of kindly forgetfulness I lent a considerable portion of my available funds to a friend who was short, and who was obliged to return to America, via England. I was in weekly expectation of a draft from home that would place me once more upon my financial legs. One, two, three weeks passed away, and the letters from America were distributed every Tuesday morning, but there was none for me. It gave me a kind of faint sensation when the clerk at the banker's gave me the disappointing answer, and I went into the reading-room of the establishment to read the new American papers, and to speculate upon the cause of the unremitting neglect of my friends at home. I shall never forget my feelings when, in the third week of my impecuniosity, I found my exchequer reduced to the small sum of eight francs. I saw the truth of Shakespeare's words describing the "consumption of the purse" as an incurable disease. I had many acquaintances and a few friends in Paris, but I determined not to borrow if it could possibly be avoided. Five days would elapse before another American mail arrived, and I resolved that my remaining eight francs should carry me through to the eventful Tuesday, which I felt sure would bring the longed-for succor. I found a little dingy shop, in a narrow street behind the Church of St. Roch, where I could get a breakfast, consisting of a bowl of very good coffee and piece of bread (I asked for the end of the loaf) for six sous. My dinners I managed to bring down to the sum of twelve sous, by choosing obscure localities for the obtaining of that repast, and confining myself to those simple and nutritious viands which possessed the merit attributed to the veal pie by Samuel Weller, being "werry fillin' at the price." Sometimes I went to bed early, to avoid the inconveniences of a light dinner. One day I dined with a friend at his lodgings, but I did not enjoy his hospitality; I felt guilty, as if I had sacrificed friendship to save my dwindling purse. The coarsest bread and the most suspicious beef of the Latin Quarter would have been more delicious to me under such circumstances than the best ragout of the Boulevards or the Palais Royal.

Of course, this state of things weighed heavily upon my spirits. I heard Marie tell her husband that Monsieur l'Anglais was bien triste. I avoided the friends with whom I had been used to meet, and (remembering what a sublime thing it is to suffer and be strong) sternly resolved not to borrow till I found myself completely gravelled. It grieved me to be obliged to pass the old blind man who played the flageolet on the Pont des Arts without dropping a copper into his tin box; but the severest blow was the being compelled to put off my obliging washerwoman and her reasonable bill. The time passed away quickly, however. The Louvre, with its treasures of art, was a blessed asylum for me. It cost me nothing, and I was there free from the importunities of distress which I could not relieve. In the halls of the great public library – now the Bibliothèque Impériale– I found myself at home. Among the studious throng that occupied its vast reading rooms, I was as independent as if my name had been Rothschild, or the treasures of the Bank of France had been at my command. The master spirits with whom I there communed do not ask what their votaries carry in their pockets. There is no property-test for admission to the privileges of their companionship. I felt the equality which prevails in the republic of letters. I knew that my left hand neighbour was not, in that quiet place, superior to me on account of his glossy coat and golden-headed cane, and that I was no better than the reader at my right hand because he wore a blouse. I jingled my two or three remaining francs in my pocket, and thought how useless money was, when the lack of it was no bar to entrance into the hallowed presence of

"Those dead but sceptred sovereigns who still ruleOur spirits from their urns."

I shall not soon forget the intense satisfaction with which I read in the regulations of the library a strict prohibition against offering any fees or gratuities whatever to its blue-coated officials.

At last the expected Tuesday morning came. My funds had received an unlooked-for diminution by receiving a letter from my friend whose wants had led me into difficulty. He was just embarking at Liverpool – hoped that my remittance had arrived in due season – promised to send me a draft as soon as he reached New York – envied my happiness at remaining in Paris – and left me to pay the postage on his valediction. It would be difficult for any disinterested person to conceive how dear the thoughtless writer of that letter was to me in that unfortunate hour. Then, too, I was obliged to lay out six of those cherished copper coins for a ride in an omnibus, as I was caught in a shower over in the vicinity of St. Sulpice, and could not afford to take the risk of a rheumatic attack by getting wet. I well remember the cool, business-like air with which that relentless conducteur pocketed those specimens of the French currency that were so precious in my sight. Yet, in spite of these serious and unexpected drains upon my finances, I had four sous left after paying for my breakfast on that memorable morning. I felt uncommonly cheerful at the prospect of being relieved from my troubles, and stopped several minutes after finishing my coffee, and conversed with the tidy shopwoman with a fluency that astonished both of us. I really regretted for the moment that I was so soon to be placed in funds, and should no longer enjoy her kindly services. I chuckled audibly to myself as I pursued my way to the banker's, to think what an immense joke it would be for some skilful Charley Bates or Artful Dodger to try to pick my pocket just then. An ancient heathen expecting an answer from the oracle of Delphos, a modern candidate for office awaiting the count of the vote, never felt more oppressed with the importance of the result than I did when I entered the banking-house. My delight at having a letter from America put into my hands could only be equalled by my dismay when I opened it, and found, instead of the draft, a request from a casual acquaintance who had heard that I might possibly return home through England, and who, if I did, would be under great obligations if I would take the trouble to procure and carry home for him an English magpie and a genuine King Charles spaniel!

I did not stop to read the papers that morning. As I was leaving the establishment, I met its chief partner, to whom I could not help expressing my disappointment. He was one of your hard-faced, high-cheek-boned Yankees, with a great deal of speculation in his eyes. I should as soon have thought of attempting the cultivation of figs and dates at Franconia as of trying to get a small loan from him. So I pushed on into those busy streets whose liveliness seemed to mock my pitiable condition. I had come to it at last. I had got to borrow. A physician, who now stands high among the faculty in Boston, was then residing in Paris, and, as I had been on familiar terms with him, I determined to have recourse to him. He occupied two rooms in the fifth story of a house in the Rue St. Honoré. His apartments were more remarkable for their snugness than for the extent of accommodation they afforded. A snuff-taking friend once offered to present the doctor with one of his silk handkerchiefs to carpet that parlour with. But the doctor's heart was not to be measured by the size of his rooms, and I knew that he would be a friend in need. The concierge told me that the doctor had not gone out, and, in obedience to the instructions of that functionary, I mounted the long staircase and frapped at the door of that estimable disciple of Galen. It was not my usual thrice-repeated stroke upon the door; it was a timid and uncertain knock – the knock of a borrower. The doctor said that he had been rather short himself for a week or two, but that he should undoubtedly find a letter in the General Post that morning that would place him in a condition to give me a lift. This was said in a manner that put me entirely at my ease, and made me feel that by accepting his loan I should be conferring an inestimable favour upon him. As we walked towards the Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, I amused him with the story of the preceding week's adventures. He laughed heartily, and after a few minutes I joined with him, though I must say that the events, as they occurred, did not particularly impress me as subjects for very hilarious mirth. The doctor inquired at the poste restante in vain. His friends had been as remiss as mine, and we had both got to wait another week. The doctor was not an habitually profane man, but as we came through the court-yard of the post office, he expressed his anxiety as to what the devil we should do. He examined his purse, and found that his available assets amounted to a trifle more than nineteen francs. He looked as troubled as he had before looked gay. I generously offered him my four remaining coppers, and told him that I would stand by him as long as he had a centime in his pocket. Such an exhibition of magnanimity could not be made in vain. We stopped in front of the church of Our Lady of Victories, and took the heroic resolve to club our funds and go through the week of expectation together. And we did it. I wish that space would allow of my describing the achievements of that week. Medical books were cast aside for the study of domestic economy. I do not believe that a similar sum of money ever went so far before, even in Paris. We found a place in a narrow street, near the Odeon, where fried potatoes were sold very cheap; we bought our bread by the loaf, as it was cheaper – the loaves being so long that the doctor said that he understood, when he first saw them, why bread was called the staff of life. We resorted to all sorts of expedients to make a franc buy as much as possible of the necessaries of life. We frequented with great assiduity all places of public amusement where there was no fee for admission. The public galleries, the libraries, the puppet shows in the Champs Elysées, were often honoured with our presence. We made a joke of our necessities, and carried it through to the end. The next Tuesday morning found us, after breakfasting, on our way to the post office, with a franc left in our united treasury. I had begun to give up all hopes of our ever getting a letter from home, and insisted upon the doctor's trying his luck first. He was successful, but the severest part of the joke came when he found that his letter (contrary to all precedent) was not postpaid. The polite official at the window must have thirty-two sous for it, and we had but twenty. Our laughter showed him the whole state of the case, and we left him greatly amused at our promises to return soon, and get the desirable prize. My application at the banker's was successful, too, and before noon we were both prepared to laugh a siege to scorn. I paid the rosy-cheeked washerwoman, bought Marie a neat crucifix to hang up in the place of a very rude one in her conciergerie, out of sheer good humour; and that evening the doctor and I laughed over the recollections of the week and a good dinner in a quiet restaurant in the Palais Royal.

THE OLD CORNER

The human heart loves corners. The very word "corner" is suggestive of snugness and cosy comfort, and he who has no liking for them is something more or less than mortal. I have seen people whose ideas of comfort were singularly crude and imperfect; who thought that it consisted in keeping a habitation painfully clean, and in having every book or paper that might give token of the place being the dwelling of a human being, carefully out of sight. We have great cause for thankfulness that such people are not common, (for a little wholesome negligence is by no means an unpleasant thing,) so that we can say that mankind generally likes to snuggify itself, and is therefore fond of a corner. This natural fondness is manifested by the child with his playthings and infantile sports, in one of which, at least, the attractions of corners for the feline race are brought strongly before his inquisitive mind. And how is this liking strengthened and built up as the child increases in secular knowledge, and learns in the course of his poetical and historical researches all about the personal history of Master John Horner, whose sedentary habits and manducation of festive pastry are famous wherever the language of Shakespeare and Milton is spoken!

This love of nooks and corners is especially observable in those who are obliged to live in style and splendour. Many a noble English family has been glad to escape from the bondage of its rank, and has found more real comfort in the confinement of a Parisian entresol than amid the gloomy grandeur of its London home. Those who are condemned to dwell in palaces bear witness to this natural love of snugness, by choosing some quiet sunny corner in their marble halls, and making it as comfortable as if it were a cosy cottage. Napoleon and Eugenie delight to escape from the magnificence of the Tuileries to that quiet and homelike refuge for people who are burdened with imperial dignity, amid the thick foliage and green alleys of St. Cloud. Even in that mighty maze, the Vatican, the rooms inhabited by the Sovereign Pontiff are remarkably comfortable and unpalatial, and prove the advantages of smallness and simplicity over gilding and grandeur, for the ordinary purposes of life. An American gentleman once called on the great and good Cardinal Cheverus, and while talking with him of his old friends in America, said that the contrast between the Cardinal's position in the episcopal palace of Bordeaux and in his former humble residence when he was Bishop of Boston, was a very striking one. The humble and pious prelate smiled, and taking his visitor by the arm, led him from the stately hall in which they were conversing, into a narrow room furnished in a style of austere simplicity: "The palace," said he, "which you have seen and admired is the residence of the Cardinal Archbishop of Bordeaux; but this little chamber is where John Cheverus lives."

Literary men and statesmen have always coveted the repose of a corner where they might be undisturbed by the wranglings of the world. Twickenham, and Lausanne, and Ferney, and Rydal Mount have become as shrines to which the lover of books would fain make pilgrimages. Have we not a Sunnyside and an Idlewild even in this new land of ours! Cicero, in spite of his high opinion of Marcus Tullius, and his thirst for popular applause, often grew tired of urban life, and was glad to forsake the Senatus populusque Romanus for the quiet of his snug villa in a corner of the hill country overlooking Frascati. And did not our own Tully love to fling aside the burden of his power, and find his Tusculum on the old South Shore? In the Senate Chamber or the Department of State you might see the Defender of the Constitution, but it was at Marshfield that Webster really lived. Horace loved good company and the entertainment of his wealthy patrons and friends, but he loved snugness and quiet even more. In one of his odes he apostrophizes his friend Septimius, and describes to him the delight he takes in the repose of his Tiburtine retreat from the bustle of the metropolis, saying that of all places in the world that corner is the most smiling and grateful to him: —

Ille terrarum mihi præter omnesAngulus ridet.

If we look into our hearts, I think we shall most of us find that we have a clinging attachment to some favourite corner, as well as Mr. Horatius Flaccus. There is at least one corner in the city of Boston, which has many pleasant associations for the lover of literature. Allusion was made a few days since, in an evening paper, to the well-known fact that the old building at the corner of Washington and School Streets was built in 1713, and is therefore older by seventeen years than the Old South Church. That little paragraph reminded me of some passages in the history of that ancient edifice related to me by an ancestor of mine, for whom the place had an almost romantic charm.

The old building (my grandfather used to tell me) was originally a dwelling-house. It had the high wainscots, the broad staircases, the carved cornices, and all the other blessed old peculiarities of the age in which it was built, which we irreverently have improved away. One hundred years ago the old corner was considered rather an aristocratic place of residence. It was slightly suburban in its position, for the town of Boston had an affection for Copp's Hill, and the inhabitants clustered about that sacred eminence as if the southern parts of their territory were a quicksand. Trees were not uncommon in the vicinity of the foot of School Street in those days, and no innovating Hathorne had disturbed the quiet of the place with countless omnibuses. The old corner was then occupied by an English gentleman named Barmesyde, who gave good dinners, and was on intimate terms with the colonial governor. My venerated relative, to whom I have already alluded, enjoyed his friendship, and in his latter days delighted to talk of him, and tell his story to those who had heard it so often, that Hugh Greville Barmesyde, Esquire, seemed like a companion of their own young days.

Old Barmesyde sprang from an ancient Somersetshire family, from which he inherited a considerable property, and a remarkable energy of character. He increased his wealth during a residence of many years in Antigua, at the close of which he relinquished his business, and returned to England to marry a beautiful English lady to whom he had engaged himself in the West Indies. He arrived in England the day after the funeral of his betrothed, who had fallen a victim to intermittent fever. Many of his relations had died in his absence, and he found himself like a stranger in the very place where he had hoped to taste again the joys of home. The death of the lady he loved so dearly, and the changes in his circle of friends, were so depressing to him, that he resolved to return to the West Indies. He thought it would be easier for him to continue in the associations he had formed there than to recover from the shock his visit to England had given him. So he took passage in a brig from Bristol to Antigua, and said farewell forever, as he supposed, to his native land. Before half the voyage was accomplished, the vessel was disabled: as Mr. Choate would express it, a north-west gale inflicted upon her a serious, an immedicable injury; and she floated a wreck upon the foamy and uneven surface of the Atlantic. She was fallen in with by another British vessel, bound for Boston, which took off her company, and with the renewal of the storm she foundered before the eyes of those who had so lately risked their lives upon her seaworthiness. When Mr. Barmesyde arrived in Boston, he found an old friend in the governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Governor Pownall had but lately received his appointment from the Crown, and being a comparative stranger in Boston, he was as glad to see Mr. Barmesyde as the latter was to see him. It was several months before an opportunity to reach the West Indies offered itself, and when one did occur, Mr. Barmesyde only used it to communicate with his agent at Antigua. He had given up all ideas of returning thither, and had settled down, with his negro servant Cato, to housekeeping at the corner of School Street, within a few doors of his gubernatorial friend.